Re: [help-texinfo] ../tools/info/makedoc: No such file or directory [solved]

[tomas]

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On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 10:53:29PM +0000, Karl Berry wrote:
> Hi Graham,
> 
> Thanks for the note.
> 
>     The solution is to install a tex system such as texlive.
> 
> I can't understand why that is the solution.  TeX Live has nothing to do
> with makedoc.  makedoc is a tiny self-contained program in the info/
> subdirectory of the texinfo source.  It has to be built and run
> natively, rather than cross.  There is code in texinfo's configure[.ac]
> to automatically do a subsidiary native configure and build to handle
> makedoc.

Karl,

as far as I understand Graham, missing makedoc was only the "second failure",
while the texinfo package tries to build some dependencies:

  "It appears when the tools (e.g. from texlive) are not available texinfo
   attempts to build them as part its build process. Since this is a cross
   compile the tools are built for the target architecture, or not present.
   The texinfo build fails with makedoc not present."

And in this case, this "makedoc" could be any makedoc: there's a makedoc
in the TeX distribution, but I think this one is different (it extracts
documentation from standardized comments in LaTeX packages, AFAIK).

Alas, "makedoc" is too generic a name for the densely populated distributions
these days.

Can you confirm that the info distribution has a binary "makedoc"? What is
it supposed to do?

I can't find a makedoc in Debian which would be part of texinfo. But then,
I think the missing makedoc itself is a secondary problem for the OP.

> I don't doubt the situation can be improved, but installing TeX Live
> can't be the answer wrt makedoc.  Something else must have been going on.

I think this is a problem the distribution (in this case Debian) has to
tackle. I'd file a bug, but for that I'd have to understand a bit better
what is going on.

Regards
- -- tomás
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